


Time and Patience

by miss_nettles_wife



Category: Eerie Indiana
Genre: Love Confessions, M/M, Outsider Perspective, POV Third Person, mayor chisel being his usual freaky self
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-02
Updated: 2020-04-02
Packaged: 2021-03-01 01:29:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,452
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23447044
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/miss_nettles_wife/pseuds/miss_nettles_wife
Summary: Marshall accidentally comes across a moment he's not meant to see between the mayor and the owner of his favourite store
Relationships: Winston Chisel/Bartholomew Radford
Comments: 2
Kudos: 4





	Time and Patience

**Author's Note:**

> noah fence but im straight up mayor chisel/mr radford on main right now. spot the taylor swift references and you get a prize (the prize is my love)

“Mr Radford!” Marshall called, jumping down the steps into the World O Stuff. He stopped, and then didn’t hear a reply. He glanced over at the bar and found it abandoned. A Black Cow is sitting abandoned, and a salt packet is spilled on the counter next to it. Simon swears by salting all his chocolate drinks, but Marshall is skeptical; he doesn’t think it will enhance the flavour. He thinks it will make the drink taste salty. Anyway: There was much more intelligent use for salt rather than flavouring drinks. He could be using it to make salt circles around anything he found in his backyard that was not meant to be there. 

He glanced around the World O Stuff. No Simon, and no trace that Simon had been here, the Black Cow probably wasn’t his since Simon never asked for extra sprinkles. He did like a nip of java or perhaps extra whipped cream but rarely sprinkles. He couldn’t think of anyone who would be asking for extra sprinkles. Dash was unlikely to leave a drink half-finished, Janet drank Pink Cows almost exclusively, Melanie only wanted her Black Cows with ice cream (much like Devon), Mary C and Andrea usually had a drink with two straws and Tod wouldn’t be caught dead drinking a Black Cow that wasn’t Actually Black. 

And, more importantly, no Mr Radford. While Simon not being here didn’t worry him too much, after all, he still had to check the library and Dash’s place, Mr. Radford not being here did worry him. He didn’t actually know where Mr Radofrd would be if not here. Maybe at the Lodge? Well, probably not considering that the door was unlocked and there was an abandoned drink on the countertop. He walked up to the drink. It didn’t look dangerous, and it didn’t look like a portal to another dimension. Just to be sure, he swirled the red plastic straw that was leaning on the side of the glass. Nothing happened. 

He looked over the counter and didn’t see anything out of place. The register was shut, which meant that there probably hadn’t been a robbery or any other associated non-weirdness related things that could happen to people. He noted a charcoal coloured coat with black lapels sitting on a barstool. It looked familiar, but he couldn’t quite picture the person he saw wearing it. He looked around the back of the store. A set of clown heads that were untouched, the Foreverware that was always on sale, in fact, he can’t remember a time that Foreverware was not on sale here; perhaps to compete with the prices of the cult that sold them to one another? Well, it wasn’t important. Not for the moment at any rate, at the moment it was important that he was able to find Mr. Radford. Unharmed, hopefully. 

He glanced around again and didn’t see anything out of place, but he did notice the door to the back storeroom was slightly ajar. He jogged across the room, but before bursting in he took a second to slow down and peer through the crack. If something was going on, bursting in was probably a great way to get into trouble. He took a breath and let it out, and peered in through the crack in the door. Inside, he could see Mr. Radford, alive, and of all people, Mayor Chisel. 

His first thought was ‘how strange’ because he hadn’t known of any particular friendship or otherwise between the Mayor and owner of the local store. He knew they knew each other, but this was a small town; everyone knew everyone, especially pillars of the community like Radford and Chisel. Mayor Chisel was wearing charcoal pants that, Marshall noted, that matched the coat on the chair outside. He wondered what was happening, he was pretty sure Mayor Chisel was human, or as close to human as someone with power in Eerie could be but even so, his fingers slipped into his pocket, around a tiny flask of Holy water, lest he actually be a vampire or something. 

Mayor Chisel stood just behind Radford, his face at about the same level while Radford looked...Marshall wasn’t sure. Concerned maybe? He felt on edge, and tried to listen in to the mostly whispered conversation. He could only just make out the words. 

“Do you remember the first time we met?” Mayor Chisel asks,

“You were nineteen.” Mister Radford replies, his voice is almost breathless. “I gave you a job, here. I was almost forty.” 

“Almost forty.” Mayor Chisel says, one of his hands is wrapped around Radford’s front, toying with the button on his vest, the other is resting on Mister Radford’s outstretched arm. He’s still holding his feather duster. 

“I watched you grow up,” Radford says, finally. “Your mother was friends with my sister.” 

“Mmm.” Chisel agreed, “And you gave me that job as a favour to her.” 

“I had no idea that things would turn out like they have.” He said, almost defensively. “I had a daughter, a family.” 

“And you had me.” Chisel says, “You’ve always had me.” 

“I shouldn’t have.” Radford replied, “You were nineteen, just working the summer before college.” 

“Don’t suggest that anything you did was against my will.” Chisel replied, tilting his chin up so his mouth was closer to Radford’s ear. “Because as far as my memory serves, I was the one who came to you.” 

“I should have turned you away.”

“But you didn’t. You gave me that summer then turned me out on my own.” 

“It was for your own good. This isn’t Hollywood, Winston.” Mr. Radford says, though Marshall has his doubts. “This is a small town. If anyone even thought that there was something more than a brotherly or even...Paternal relationship we’d both be ruined. I wasn’t going to sweep you off your feet even if I -” He stopped himself before he finished his sentence. Oh, thinks Marshall, Oh. He wasn’t one for gossip and he was no stranger to the way gay people were treated but to hear it come out of someone else’s mouth, out of Mister Radford’s mouth of all mouthes, he can’t hardly believe what he’s hearing. 

He looks at Mayor Chisel again. He looks every bit the sleazy politician Marshall knows he is but there’s something else in his face. Something….Something that looked very much like the lonely face he’d come used to seeing in the mirror. He blinked the thought away before it festered into something more and his parents decided to send him back to the councilor. She was nice and all but she didn’t believe him any more than anyone else in this town did. 

Well, except Simon. 

He turned his mind back to the conversation that has carried on without him. 

“If I wanted too.” Radford finishes, and he looks caught, his brow drawn up in the middle of his face. “You needed to live your life.” 

“I have lived my life.” Mayor Chisel says, “I’ve loved other people, but I’ve never loved anyone as much as I love you.” Then, he says, much closer - “Don’t you feel it?” Radford looks down away from the mayor, like he’s deep in thought for several long seconds before turning his head to the side and pressing a kiss to his cheek. This makes Chisel smile, a real smile that Marshall can’t remember seeing before. 

“I do.” 

“Then surely you must know that all I want is to be where I belong. With you.” 

“I know that. But...I’m not ready.” 

“What do you mean not ready?” 

“I’ve spent my whole life pretending that it never happened. I can’t stop overnight. I need time, Winston.” 

“You need time.” Mayor Chisel states, somewhat disbelievingly. “I’ve given you more than twenty years surely that should be enough time.” 

“I just need a little more. But I’m yours. You know I am.” The silence lasts for just long enough that Marshall can slither away from the door to hide behind a magazine rack; still close enough to hear Mayor Chisel’s parting words. 

“I’m a patient man, Bartholomew but don’t keep me waiting too long will you?” And with that, he watched the mayor emerge, and pass him by without notice. He stopped at the bar to collect his jacket, and scull the rest of his Black Cow in a way Marshall hadn’t thought him capable. Then, he left the store through the front door, leaving him alone with Mr. Radford. He slipped around to the bar and left, thinking that he should probably keep looking for Simon and Dash, and that he probably should keep what he just saw to himself. 


End file.
